Supreme Summoner Overlord: Rise of the Endless Legion-Chapter 434: The Outpost Behind the Illusion (2)

If he had gone without knowing this—and without telling the Aegis—the aliens might have thought he didn't trust them. But with the Church there, he had a plausible excuse.

That didn't mean he could antagonize them. The Allied Worlds still had the power to take the system away from humans, him included, so to avoid that quite possible scenario, he had to be cautious.

Reidar pulled up his skill interface and started planning.

<I'll summon the army outside the barrier and hit them from every direction at once. >

Of course, Reidar would do that at a reasonable distance. The last thing he needed was for the church to realize what was going on.

<Then I take the teleportation circle to secure my way inside Kingsgate, then the barracks to eliminate the soldiers, and finally, the warehouse.>

The plan was straightforward, but the timing had to be perfect.

Reidar moved deeper into the forest, putting distance between himself and the outpost. He needed space to summon his creatures without being detected.

When he was far enough, he stopped and reached into his mana.

He summoned his standard force first.

[Skill Activated: Summon Vorathid Sky-Hunters]

[Skill Activated: Summon Undying Legion]

[Skill Activated: Summon Apex Menagerie]

[Skill Activated: Summon Shadow Sovereigns]

[Skill Activated: Summon Spectral Quadraginta]

[Skill Activated: Summon Archon Rift Lords]

The forest darkened as the summons materialized. Sky-hunters filled the sky. Skeletal creatures rose from the ground in ranks. Beasts formed from mana. Shadow Sovereigns bled into existence from the dark spaces between the trees. Spectral warriors drew their weapons, and Archon Rift Lords opened rifts that spilled light across the undergrowth.

His perks kicked in—Boundless Legion doubled the batch summons, Legion Commander added another ten percent, and Grave Calling pushed the undead numbers even higher.

The army stood ready. Thousands of creatures filled the forest, a mass that would have been visible from the air if anyone had been looking.

But Reidar wasn't done. He was about to use his trait to summon more creatures when the creatures suddenly vanished.

Every single one of them. The Sky-Hunters, the undead, the beasts, the shadows, the spectral warriors, and the elementals—all gone. Thousands of summons dissolved into mana and dissipated, leaving Reidar standing alone in the forest after having spent 40000 mana points.

"What?" Reidar said.

He blinked. Not a single summon remained.

<What the hell just happened?>

He opened his interface. The skill cooldowns were running, which meant the skills had activated and the mana had been spent, but the summons weren't there. He checked his minion count.

[Active Summons: 0]

His heart rate spiked. He checked the mana expenditure—the costs had been deducted, but no creature was there. It was as if the summons had been created and destroyed in the same instant.

Then he saw that there were some notifications.

There were a lot of them, actually—dozens, scrolling past faster than he could read. He stopped and focused on the first one.

[Summon Vorathid Sky-Hunters reached 100% proficiency.]

[Summon Vorathid Sky-Hunters tier increased.]

[Summon Vorathid Sky-Hunters has been upgraded to Summon Vorathid Abyssal-Horrors.]

Reidar stared at the notification, and then the next one appeared.

[Summon Undying Legion reached 100% proficiency.]

[Summon Undying Legion tier increased.]

[Summon Undying Legion has been upgraded to Summon Eternal Death-Host.]

And another.

[Summon Apex Menagerie reached 100% proficiency.]

[Summon Apex Menagerie tier increased.]

[Summon Apex Menagerie has been upgraded to Summon Primal Chimera-Colossi.]

[Summon Shadow Sovereigns reached 100% proficiency.]

[Summon Shadow Sovereigns tier increased.]

[Summon Shadow Sovereigns has been upgraded to Summon Shadow Specter-Kings.]

[Summon Spectral Quadraginta reached 100% proficiency.]

[Summon Spectral Quadraginta tier increased.]

[Summon Spectral Quadraginta has been upgraded to Summon Spectral Army.]

[Summon Archon Rift-Lords reached 100% proficiency.]

[Summon Archon Rift-Lords tier increased.]

[Summon Archon Rift-Lords has been upgraded to Summon Elemental Demon-Lords.]

Reidar stood surrounded by silence and read the notifications one by one.

All six of his primary summoning skills had just reached 100% proficiency and evolved at the same time.

<Why now?>

Reidar's mind raced as he tried to understand what had happened, because the timing made no sense. Those skills had been sitting at 99% proficiency for months, in some cases. He had used them hundreds of times on the Ignis world, without them budging past that last percentage point.

Then, just now, they all broke through simultaneously.

He recalled Garran, the vendor, saying he was using too many skills at once and should use fewer. But it wasn't like he did something different either here.

<I used all six at once, and they all evolved anyway.>

Reidar had been using his skills in combination since the beginning, and based on what the vendor said, that was the reason he wasn't pushing them all past 99%. It was like he used them less than he should since he used many. But at some point in time, he had to reach a point where, even using multiple skills, these would reach the 100% proficiency threshold. It looked like it was the case now.

<I don't even know if I should consider myself lucky or not.>

Maybe the improvement was all because of F.L.I.P.

He didn't know, and it didn't matter, because the skills had been upgraded now, and what mattered was understanding what they had become.

Reidar opened the first evolved skill.

The Summon Vorathid Abyssal-Horrors was a tier 55 skill that summoned creatures at his level plus fifteen, with a mana cost of 1,000 per creature and a cooldown of just one second. But the most important detail was the duration: permanent until defeated or dismissed.

<Permanent. That's… That's incredible.>

That was a massive change from the Sky-Hunters, which had a five-hour duration limit, which was still a lot considering he started with summons that lasted half an hour at best. The Abyssal Horrors would remain in the field indefinitely, which meant Reidar could build up forces over time without worrying about them disappearing mid-fight or him wasting mana.

The creature description was disturbing, though. Colossal winged ants that had evolved into flying chimaeras with six serrated limbs, translucent wings veined with energy, and multi-jointed mandibles that wept corrosive acid.

Their abilities were a direct upgrade from the Sky-Hunters—Caustic Void-Spit replaced Venom Spit, Meteor Strike replaced Dive Bomb, and Hive Mind Mark was now an improved version of Pheromone Mark that spread to nearby enemies upon the target's death.

The Phase Flutter ability caught his eye. The Phase Flutter ability offered a 75% chance to evade any incoming attack by shifting out of the physical plane. That was almost four times better than the Sky-Hunters' Evasive Flutter skill.

<These things are going to be nearly impossible to kill.>

He moved to the next skill.